The
lesson (continuing even now) is do not mess with these people. They will destroy your
life. They
will imply that you are every horrible thing just short of slander and let their
attack dogs in the media take it from there, protected by the simple defense of
setting the verbal assault up as question ("How do you respond to those who
call you a traitor?"). Your
case, no matter how strong, will always be remembered with skepticism. Yes, Valerie Plame worked with the CIA, the pundits will proclaim, but
was she actually a covert operative?

The
existence of doubt is enough. There
was a time when reasonable doubt was enough to dismiss an allegation of guilt
against the accused, but in this warped political landscape, even a vague hint
of doubt is more than enough to condemn the victim. The burden of proof has shifted in a radical
way. Those in power do not need to prove they are right; they must only
suggest that those who question are wrong.

Fair
Game is the story of two loyal Americans whose lives top people in the
George W. Bush administration attempted to destroy. It is a political film, not in the sense of advancing an agenda (director
Doug Liman approaches the detailed script with emotional restraint), but in the
acknowledgment of real names and actual events, conjectured, behind-the-scenes
gossip and documented, in-front-of-the-camera strikes. The angriest the film gets is in doing exactly what it depicts the
powerful doing: It names names.

Naomi
Watts plays Plame, a covert agent with the CIA, working in counter-proliferation.
Her husband
Joseph Wilson (Sean Penn) is a former US Ambassador, now an independent
contractor.

The
story begins in the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with Plame searching
for reliable intelligence that Saddam Hussein has been acquiring materials to
build nuclear weapons after a push from the Office of the Vice President that
such information exists. She
suggests her husband, who worked in Africa for over a decade, go to Niger,
whence a report from the Vice President's office suggests Iraq is obtaining
hundreds of tons of yellowcake uranium. He
finds no official or unofficial evidence of such a transaction taking place and
writes as much in his own report.

Events
begin to spiral out of control for everyone involved, from Plame all the way up
to her bosses in the agency. "Scooter"
Libby (David Andrews) begins to take daily trips across the Potomac to grill
analysts. Here is the Vice
President's understanding of the situation, he tells them: Saddam is building
weapons of mass destruction. The
analysts say the reports cannot be fully verified or disproven. Asking for the margin of error, Libby pushes them; even a one percent
chance that it's right could result in the deaths of millions upon millions.

Wilson
watches Bush's State of the Union address in 2003 (and Liman uses footage of the
actual speech), listens as he says a certain unfounded 16 words, and, less than
two months later, the United States invades Iraq. Wilson publishes an op-ed piece in the New
York Times, and soon after, Valerie Plame is revealed to work for the CIA
according to sources in the White House.

The
screenplay by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth (based on books by both Plame and
Wilson) is rife with details, supported by news clips, and driven by quiet
outrage (how else to explain the buffoonish, wide-eyed stare of the film's Karl
Rove (Adam LeFevre) and the stuttering, incoherence of its Ari Fleischer
(Geoffrey Cantor), even if the latter is spot-on). It suggests an organized character assassination against Wilson through
his wife, perpetuated by a few willing cohorts in the media (who don't even
bother asking him questions eventually and just flat-out call him a traitor),
with most of the alleged perpetrators avoiding indictment.

The
establishment of the background events is a fine telling, but the backbone of
the film is in the portrayal of the two targets. Both Plame and Wilson here are presented as strong-willed, almost
stubborn people of principles. They
both have the defense of their family in the forefront of their mind. The clash is in the way they each believe is the best approach to it,
with Plame insisting on remaining silent and Wilson shouting the injustice from
the mountaintops.

It
is their conflict, caused by but apart from the betrayal and mudslinging and
anchored in resolute performances by Watts and Penn, that elevates Fair
Game above its initial ambitions of docudrama.